Arkansas Blog

Sierra Club touts benefits of solar power

The Sierra Club in Arkansas says the state Public Service Commission should not change rules in a way that could discourage people who use solar power for electricity.

The PSC is considering a change in rules for "net metering customers." People who generate solar power get a 1-to-1 credit for unused power sent back to a utility. Utilities want to reduce the credit. They claim it's necessary to recover costs for having net metering customers in their systems.

The Sierra Club responds with a study that says the current system is good for all ratepayers and the direct benefits outweigh the costs., not to mention societal benefits in encouraging cleaner power sources. More here. It says in part:

In many states across the country, utilities are seeking to charge net-metering customers fees or pay them less for their exports than their clean, renewable energy is worth. Most states have rejected these proposals, and the Arkansas solar advocates intervening in this docket call on Arkansas’s regulators to continue to encourage the deployment of renewable energy. Distributed renewable energy generation provides clean low-cost energy that alleviates the need to build new transmission lines and power plants, also reducing the need to purchase expensive, out-of-state fuels like the coal imported from Wyoming Powder River Basin into Arkansas.